The Liberal Campaign

Published:PravdaNo. 77, July 28, 1912.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages231-232.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Theliberals have begun to get busy and have brought
concerted pressure to bear onPravda. Leading articles in the
CadetRech, and the non-partisan progressive Mr. Prokopovich and
Mr. R. Blank inZaprosy Zhizniopened fire on the workers’
newspaper for its decision to conduct an independent election campaign in
St. Petersburg.

“Theefforts ofNevskaya ZvezdaandPravdaare completely useless,” assertsZaprosy
   Zhizni. “Surely they cannot seriously expect the candidate of the
   workers’ party to win in the St. Petersburg city curia, where the workers’
   participation is negligible.”

“Theefforts ofNevskaya ZvezdaandPravdaare completely useless,” assertsZaprosy
   Zhizni. “Surely they cannot seriously expect the candidate of the
   workers’ party to win in the St. Petersburg city curia, where the workers’
   participation is negligible.”

Thereyou have a sample of the liberal arguments, and a method of
intimidating the voter who has not yet risen above philistinism, has not
worked out an entirely conscious policy for himself.

Therewas a time when the liberals tried to intimidate simply with the
prospect of a Black-Hundred victory in the elections. But crude lies no
longer “work”. Everyone knows that there is not the slightest danger of
the Black Hundreds winning in the St. Petersburg elections. So a different
kind of intimidation is resorted to: “there is no reason to expect the
workers to win”.

Oh,no, liberal gentlemen, the democratic voter in general, and the
worker in particular, has lived through many things, he has thought over
and learned many things in the past difficult five years. That sort of
intimidation will get you nowhere.

Nowherein the world have the workers beguntheirelection
campaign in a big city without beingopposedby strong liberal
parties. Nowhere in the world have workerdemocrats succeeded without a stubborn fight in wresting from the liberals
their influence on the mass of the lower-grade office workers,
shop-assistants, handicraftsmen, petty traders, etc.

Whoeveris against the St. Petersburg workers beginning that fight here
and now (or rather going on from where they left off in 1906, 1907 and
1909), assumes the name of democrat in vain, and remains in fact a slave of
the liberals.

Thousandsupon thousands of new democratic voters will now take part in
the St. Petersburg elections.

TheSt. Petersburg workers’ great achievement in founding their own
workers’ daily newspaper fully entitles us to expect no lesser achievements
in the election campaign.

Thousandsof old voters are awakening to a new, more class-conscious
political activity. They are learning, with the help of their workers’
newspaper, to fight for a better life for themselves, developing the habit
of joint political action, and growing increasingly aware of the great
national problems which the worker democrats are solving.

Theliberals in St. Petersburg can be defeated. And from the liberals’
uneasiness and quarrelsome sallies, from their shouting and their attempts
at intimidation, democratic St. Petersburg will derive added confidence
that it is on the right path to victory.